No, this isn’t happening. I can still save him. There’s still time. She remembered what Adanna had done to her when she’d had Morsus after being captured by the Raider. She remembered the way Adanna had balanced her forehead against hers and had forced her energy through her. At this moment, as she gazed at Yuri and felt him being pulled away from her, she reacted by instinct alone.
Leaning downward, she kissed him, pressing her lips against his own, and thought, I have to save him. I have to. I don’t know what draws us together or what made me like him so fast, but I don’t care. She felt a tingling sensation on her lips that did not come from the kiss, and beneath her hand, she felt Yuri’s soul strengthen from the energy she gave to him. Yuri wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she shuddered and gazed down at him.
“Eden,” Yuri said, when she pulled back.
“Yes?”
Then the two of them were pulled into the stream together, even though both of them still had enough energy to function.
Chapter Twelve
Eden felt strange in the river. Cold. Uneasy. All around her were white, faceless souls similar to all of the Raiders she had seen, and they all ignored her. She tried to gain control by kicking her legs like she might if she was swimming, but doing that didn’t propel her an inch. She was truly in the control of the dark river which surrounded her. And Yuri. She and Yuri were together too. He still held her close. She had her hand on her stomach as she winced and was filled with pain from the Morsus.
As she floated along, she was overwhelmed by her worst memories. That was what the Morsus did, after all. It kept her from being happy. It showed her memories she had which were so terrible they filled her with sickness. It also showed her other bad memories as well. And darkness. Terrible, terrible darkness.
Eden was eight years old again, sitting on the steps. She sat there often, listening to her parents argue. It was easy for her to name the same topics — work, her mom’s boyfriends, and sometimes, her. She hated it when they spoke about her.
“She’s odd,” her mom said. “The teachers say it. She’s different than the rest of the kids and doesn’t fit in. Too quiet. She hasn’t spoken one word all year.”
“She speaks to me,” her dad said. “Eden’s fine.”
“Well, I want to move,” her mom said. “I don’t like this town. They are too judgmental.”
“Aha,” her dad said. “Don’t blame Eden for what you want. You got caught with the neighbor man again, didn’t you? I just don’t understand, Rebecca. Why him?”
“It has nothing to do with that,” her mom said. “It’s Eden. She is odd.”
“She’s not odd.”
“She is,” her mom said. “And she gets it from you.”
Eden was gone from the memory again. It was just as well. She didn’t want to see that memory anymore. She hated that memory, like a thousand others. She buried her face in Yuri’s chest, and he tightened his grip around her shoulder blades; she could feel his lips against her hair. At that moment, she knew he was consumed by Morsus too. The two of them were in this together. They had to get out of it together too.
Eden opened her eyes and began to struggle. She gazed through the stream and saw every once in a while they got close to the side of it. Maybe she could pull herself out. Just as she got close enough, though, darkness overwhelmed her. This time, she did not see her own memory. She saw her dad’s, but unlike when she melded with her chosen souls, her mind did not meet with his. She stood next to him, a shadowing ghost.
Her dad lay upon the ground and everything around him was dark. So dark he could have been in the river too. All around, there was the sound of loud screams. The air smelled heavily of smoke and her eyes were groggy. Her dad sat up, glanced around, and looked down the street. Corpses littered the road and the smell of something sour filled the air. The ground was covered in deep gouges and cracks.
Osier stood up shakily, sweat dribbling down his forehead, and took a stumbling step to the side. A man stood next to him. A man that caused him to pause. The man had dark brown hair and eyes and a sinister smile. It was someone Eden recognized.
“Dad, get away from him,” Eden said, but he did not hear her.
“Wh-who are you?” he asked.
“Asag,” the man said.
“Asag?”
Asag reached forward and touched her dad. His skin grew flaky at the touch and his veins bulged and grew prominent. The smell of searing flesh filled the air, and he gasped in his pain and threw his head back and started to yell. He tilted his head to the right and stared into the glass of the store next to him. Eden turned and stared too.
Instead of a man reflected in the glass, a demon with eight limbs and a long, dry tongue stood. His eyes appeared like white billiard balls, without the numbers, and he had long claws. The stink of rotten fish filled the air, and her dad cried out as the impossibly strong demon embraced him and his body shook.
“No, no, no,” he said.
And Eden screamed, “No, no, no!” too as she was pulled from the vision and realized she was back in Yuri’s arms again.
“It’s okay,” Yuri said, though she could see the pain in his features.
“We have to get to the wall of the river,” Eden said. “We have to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Yuri said, shuddering.
****
Trapped. Imprisoned. Lost. Eden could scarcely get to the edge of the river of souls, and when she tried to it felt like she could hardly move. She reached forward, grasped the wall, and felt cold as her hand slipped through. There was nothing to grab onto, though, just cold air around her hand. The river was already moving her away from the side, taunting her. She shuddered against Yuri and felt blackness, and Yuri pressed his fingers into her hair.
“It’s okay,” he said for the thousandth time. She thought she would have been tired of that by now, but she wasn’t.
Everything slipped away into blackness as she shut her eyes, and then she saw the most horrifying creature of all. Satan, standing in the middle of a barren land she realized was Earth. Buildings fell apart and crumbled to the ground, cars lay on the ground upturned and rusty, and all around her, she saw demons. Horribly malformed demons. Demons with six heads and cloven hooves. Demons with sharp as dagger nails and sharp teeth.
There were several stronger demons that stood beside the five-headed beast, Satan. There was a demon who, instead of hair, had a bald head and slimy scales that covered her entire body. Her face was narrow and elongated, like the front face of a fish or a dolphin. There were shriveled wings upon her back.
An elderly man with bulging, blank, billiard-ball eyes stood by the demon woman’s side. He wore an aged kimono, like an oriental person might wear, but he had long teeth like a crocodile that peeked out of his mouth like sharp scissors. A smile was on his face as he leered forward, into the darkness.
There was one more woman among them, a woman who possessed a great and terrible beauty. Her hair hung down her back in long auburn strands and her eyes were bright blue and appeared intense and staring. Her face was fair and pale. She wore a long black dress that floated around her in a nonexistent wind and a crown was upon her head. She held a stick that appeared to be a walking stick.
The figures began to change, to morph. Eden watched every demon become human within a blink of the eye. The fish-faced demon became a plain, middle-aged woman, the elderly man became a middle-aged Chinese man, and the auburn-haired woman became a young teenaged girl in a pair of jeans. They appeared so average, so ordinary. Eden gazed at Satan and saw he had changed too.
Instead of being a five-headed beast, he stood before the crowd with black ebony hair and glowing blue eyes. He stared forward, his fists clenched. The sound of a helicopter filled the air, loud and distant. Thud, thud, thud. Satan threw up his hands and Eden saw his red aura stretch out across the sky like a draft. It consumed the helicopter, shrouding it in red; the helicopter sputtered and the sound of banging and the smell of burn
ing filled the air. The helicopter, with a loud, high-pitched shriek, was pitched backward and began to hurtle toward the ground while aflame. It fell with a loud crash and an explosion of sound. “Lady Midday, Abyzou,” Satan said, first turning toward the auburn-haired teenager who had been the auburn beauty and then the fish-faced woman who was now a middle-aged woman. “Clear off the land and prepare to summon the two million warriors.”
“Yes, Lord,” Lady Midday said, bowing before him.
“Thank you for this opportunity, Lord,” Abyzou said, kneeling and then standing up and heading away.
There was silence for a moment as the two she-demons walked away. Satan and the final male demon lingered along with the rest of the pack of unnamed, lesser demons who were now human. Near the site, the sound of scraping metal could be heard. There was then the sound of worried, garbled talking. Humans talking.
“Lord, what do you will of me?” the male demon asked.
“Agares,” Satan said, “I have a fly under my spell of Morsus, but it takes my concentration to continue to torture her to keep her in one place. My she-demon was of little use.”
Agares crossed his arms. “Where is she, Lord? Should I destroy her?”
“She is here with us now,” Satan said. “I have made sure of it.”
Agares shut his eyes and dark red energy poured out of him, filling the night sky. Sensing.
“The Morsus,” Agares said.
“Yes,” Satan said. “I have two jobs for you.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“First, there are humans approaching,” Satan said with a demonic rumble. “I want you to get rid of them.”
“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Agares said. “I shall do it, and I shall love it.”
“Then I want you to tell Asag his prisoner has escaped and when he finds her, he can imprison the man who defends her and keep his soul as an eternal pet. The man has betrayed me, and I do not stand for betrayal.”
“Yes, Lord.”
The sound of human footsteps grew closer. Five people could be seen, walking down the road. When the group spotted Satan and the other beings, big grins lit up their faces and they ran to them. Agares cracked his knuckles and his smile widened.
“Shall I begin, Lord?” Agares asked.
Satan nodded and the sound of loud, ear-splitting screams filled the air.
The darkness faded from Eden’s eyes. She grabbed onto Yuri’s shirt as they floated along in the river. She could hear Satan’s words echoing loudly in her head. She had been with Satan, and Satan had known Yuri had defended her and rescued her, even though this entire mess was her fault.
But she would not allow Satan to have Yuri. She would also fight the Morsus. Fight it any way she could. And the first step was to get out of the river.
A soul floated by her, and Eden seized it and discovered other souls, though shapeless, still had a physical presence, even in the river. She pulled herself forward, through the cool stream, and felt her and Yuri give. Yuri, whose eyes were squeezed shut as he endured something terrible, was silent. She realized he probably had not known he had even moved.
Darkness clouded Eden’s vision again, but she thought, I will fight this. I will get Yuri out of here before Asag gets back, and I will make sure no demons can rule Earth again. She pulled herself forward, through the stream, and grabbed yet another soul. Her vision flickered, and she tried to shake her head to fight it. Shaking her head did little good.
In her mind, she saw the same group of five people, tied up by Agares on their hands and knees. The two women, one blonde and the other brunette, were in tears. Crimson streamed through their shirts because of what he had done to them.
“No,” Eden said. “Stop controlling me. Morsus or not, I am not going to see this.”
Eden grabbed another soul, pulling herself along. The soul was propelled backward as she was propelled forward. Grunting, Yuri tightened his grip so hard it hurt. The pain centered Eden and made her focus on the dark river and the next shapeless soul that was just an arm’s length away. If only Yuri wasn’t about as helpful as a dead fish…
As Eden reached forward toward another soul, she saw Satan’s cold human face. It was odd to see, after she had witnessed his terrible five-headed self. Eden could hear loud, pained screams in the Morsus vision. One of the group of five humans lay crumpled on the dirty ground.
Eden put her hand in her mouth and sunk her teeth into her index finger.. Sharp pain filled her hand, but the pain once again brought her back to reality. She could only pray she wasn’t about to lose her place and become a shapeless mass, as she assumed that was what would happen when she depleted her energy enough. Almost there, Eden thought, reaching for the next soul. Almost. I’ll get out of here and save Yuri. I will.
“You will never escape me,” Satan’s voice said, and she realized he was speaking on earth, knowing every cold word he uttered drilled into her head like a hammer forcing nails into her ears. She hated the chilling sound of his voice. “When I own the world—and I will —I will make you my own personal slave and will keep you locked in a cage. You will never escape me.”
No. Eden once again reached into her mouth and bit down. It seared her fingers, but it did little to help her get away from Satan’s hateful voice. She had to shake off this Morsus soon, or else she would never be able to get away from Asag. If he caught them, she would never be safe and neither would Yuri. She managed to get ahold of the next soul and was able to pull herself yet another foot toward the edge of the river. There was a soul who hovered right by the side. If she could grab his arm, if she could haul herself and Yuri out, then everything would be fine.
“Do you know what I will do when I own you?” Satan asked. “I will beat you and hang you from your long hair. And do you want to know what will happen to your beloved mother? I will torture her and make you watch every painful second.”
Not my mom. Anyone but my mom.
“Yes, delicious,” Satan said. “Even in a different world, I can taste your fear and loathing, and I love it. I will drink it every day.”
“Not my mom!” Eden screamed, grabbing ahold of the next soul in line. She hauled herself forward and fell out of the stream and rolled onto the ground. Yuri fell out too and blinked in surprise. Shaking, Eden stood up.
“You got us out?” Yuri groaned, staggering to his feet. “How? I don’t remember… Satan said horrible things. He said he was going to, he was going to…”
“I know,” Eden whispered, reaching for his hand. “Let’s go.”
This time, Yuri grabbed her hand without hesitation and let her lead him.
Chapter Thirteen
Walking with Morsus was like attempting to leap through burning coals blind. Yet she had to lead Yuri out of here. She refused to let him, or her mom, become the next victims of Satan’s tricks.
As Eden stumbled forward, heading past the river toward more shadow land, her vision flickered again. She saw Satan standing in the middle of the town, hovering above a pool of crimson. His eyes were cool and cold. He did not care what he had done to those humans that were now here where she was.
The ground shook below him and strange, finger-like cracks appeared, yet where Satan stood remained free from any breaks. He gazed down with a sly smile on his face and then he bent down, placed his hands on the dirt, and began to whisper to it. The ground began to shake harder and the sky boomed with thunder. To Satan’s left, Eden saw a strange man, likely a demon due to his presence in the town and the cold yet amused expression on his face. He held what appeared to be a shriveled rat head on a string and held it up to the sky.
Suddenly, the ground broke and fell around Satan, taking down two nearby buildings with it. The sound of the earth shrieking, wood splintering, and Satan’s whispering filled the air. Satan stood on a piece of land surrounded by a massive hole. He let out a high, cold laugh and gazed deep downward.
“There is no longer a need to torment and watch the girl,” Satan said. “Go. Convince the huma
ns to spear their own hearts which will allow me to release my two million horsemen. Let them taste their doom at their own hands.”
Satan held his hand over the ravine which had been created, and somehow, he willed a single drop of water to fall from his hand. The water fell from his palm with a small drip, and then, suddenly, the sound of a dragon’s roar filled the night. There was more roaring and more earth shaking, and then there was loud thudding as a strange, unnatural creature crawled up the side of the ravine. It looked like nothing Eden had even seen before.
When it reached the top of the ravine and crawled over the ground like it was nothing, the stench of rotting sea creature filled the air tenfold. The creature had seven heads, each like a lion’s head. Each of these heads had large, pointed thorns. The creature was at least twenty-five feet high with the feet of a bear and the spotted body of a leopard. As it lumbered, hissed, and crouched, it appeared as though it should have been top heavy and fallen over, but it remained graceful and frightful with its massive fangs and banana-sized claws.
“First Beast,” Satan said.
First Beast growled and pawed at the ground and the earth shook again. Eden then saw for the first time what had created the massive holes, in purgatory as well as on Earth. There, out of the ground, came a massive bear with two giant horns upon its head. At least, that was what it appeared to be. It had dark brown shaggy fur, a body the size of a truck, and gleaming, angry eyes. Its fangs were so large a tooth was the width of her forearm. It had drool streaming from its mouth which matted its already dirt-encrusted fur. It did not roar like First Beast.
“Second Beast,” Satan said.
“Lord,” Second Beast said.
Second Beast had a charming, deep, rumbling voice. It sounded strange coming from a creature like that.
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